Sometimes I think that I haven't lived well to write about these. But if I'm able to feel so much this way about an album or even just a song and put them in an order, according to the phases of the moon or how the light gets in in the morning or by the metronome of Johnny's snoring, then I've lived enough. These are my essential spring jams. They've helped me recover from and reconnect with myself in a way a religion, a crystal, a superstition would. Knowing these is almost like insurance and I can't ever die because I know where to turn to when I need to heal.
1. Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane - I got this record recently because it was always on my favourite people's list of all-time greatest albums and I was curious, but what specifically got me in to contemplating my life was the track, Embryonic Journey. And what a journey it truly was, it makes me want to go on a road trip with Johnny in our old corolla, windows rolled down, the bittersweet smell of victory filling the air after we've irresponsibly Bonnie and Clyde all our troubles. I also love In the Morning and Today. Grace Slick, the only girl in the band, 's voice is so gripping and powerful, I'm scalped.
2. A Gift From a Flower to a Garden by Donovan - Donovan's songs are meant for spring and I know this for a fact because I'm obsessed with him and I have all of his records and if I could just take them with me to school for voluntary show-and-tell, I would. This particular album is just a representative because it has all the springtime figures: magpies, toasts, corduroy, gypsies, the mandolin, etc. The song Sun makes you wanna roll around a field of wildflowers, Wear Your Love Like Heaven is like looking through a kaleidoscope and of course The Lullaby of Spring is a spring song. You can replace all the albums on this list at this point and just listen to the entire Donovan discography, but spare Sunshine Superman for autumn.
3. One Stone by Trixie Mattel - Trixie is my life, my love, my ocean and my breath. You have no idea how many times she had scooped me out of my hole with just one annoying dad joke swoop. One Stone is my sacred writ and fittingly the sound of her playing the autoharp is what I think heaven sounds like. It was released recently and is an extension of her first album, Two Birds (Two Birds, One Stone. Get it? Cos she's multitalented), and she has this to say about it: "It's like Harry Potter novels and they're sequential and Two Birds is sort of this fantasy based in reality; it's a break-up album! It's like sappy country radio album and then One Stone is sort of like a self-reflection of “well, maybe I’m the problem” and like, “maybe relationships are good even if they end early”. It’s about taking the good and the bad. One Stone is supposed to mean the solidarity and the weight in that kind of weathered, earthy stability in your life, that’s you." This is definitely the "spring cleaning your life" album I desperately needed because it doesn't tell you that you're garbage and you have to completely redo your garbage life! Instead, it's more of a gentle you're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you look like Linda Evangelista so keep going and maybe just read the signs more carefully. One Stone is saving my life right now and it might save yours so go listen.
4. Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell - This isn't exactly a spring album BUT! Twisted makes me think of that episode in Hey! Arnold when Arnold and Gerald worked as florists for Mrs. Vitello and I noticed it's the record I listen to a lot whenever I empty my cabinets or when I have to fold my clothes after I reclaim it from the laundromat. Also, listen to these lines from the track, People's Parties: I feel like I'm sleeping / Can you wake me? / You seem to have a broader sensibility / I'm just living on nerves and feelings / With a weak and a lazy mind / And coming to people's parties / Fumbling deaf dumb and blind ugh if this bitch ain't me
5. Imagine Our Love by Lavender Diamond - This album is falling in love in (or with) spring! Automatically you'll be transported to a 1940s romance in the fields with a few simple lyrics and perfectly orchestrated melodies. You can imagine this album as one giant floral-printed pongee robe through the songs Garden Rose and Dance Until It's Tomorrow and what else could you possibly need for spring besides a pongee robe that you can twirl in?
6. Friends by The Beach Boys - No one's ever associated the Beach Boys with spring before and this is probably musical sacrilege because they're naturally for the summertime but Friends, for me, is slightly different from their distinct sound and feels more buoyant and breezy. Like usually their albums make me wanna go surfing but this one makes me wanna knit or frolic? More green, less yellow, you get what I mean? And I like that the messages of the songs within this album is always life is beautiful, transcendental meditation, take a simple path, take your time, reconnect with yourself, etc. which are all spring's true essence. They're positive vibes that aren't too forcible. Passing By, Be Still and Busy Doin' Nothin' are essential and my faves! Also, can I just say that Dennis needs to be in the spotlight more often.
7. The Milk-Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom - My home is in a ridiculously small town, almost an hour away from the city and the only way we can leave to run an errand is if our dad drives to open the shop so you best believe we had a pile of mixes in the car to back up the open road with the perfect soundtrack. That's how I first heard of Joanna Newsom. It's through her song Bridges & Balloons that my sister added to her mix in 2009? 2010? and I was intensely annoyed by it. A singing Moaning Myrtle, I would imagine. She's an acquired taste and clearly she didn't tickle my fancy. But now that I'm away from home and I long for family car rides that always made me feel safe, her songs became nostalgic and that's when I started actually listening to her music and I was such a fool to miss out on her otherworldliness. Her songs are so hauntingly beautiful and mindfully illustrated, it's as if your eccentric grandma is reading children's books to you. Sprout and the Bean and This Side of the Blue are wowza so maybe listen to those too?
8. The Complete Lhi Recordings by Honey Ltd. - You guys. Honey Ltd.'s claim to fame is an exemplar of hope, friendship and free spirit. Honey Ltd. was a group consisted of four girls in the sixties who shared one single dream, that is, to become the Mamas and the Papas. So they hitchhiked to Sunset Boulevard for an audition, with Lee Hazlewood no less, and he was captivated by their refreshing "cheerful togetherness", other than their honey syrup pipes and mystical harmonies of course, that he decided to sign them immediately. They can almost taste the finish line but their singing career didn't really take off. The album they recorded wasn't even physically actualized. Not until Light in the Attic Records produced reissues 45 years later. Now, the Honey Ltd. girls are still all friends and they admit that there's no bitterness towards their decline and they're glad that what had happened, happened and that they now have this tangible record, drenched in peach schnapps, cough syrup and apple jam, as a reminder of their journey when they had "just enough money to get there but not enough to go home if our dreams did not manifest".
9. Odyssey and Oracle by The Zombies - This album is so versatile you can listen to it during the summer (Beechwood Park), autumn (Time of the Season), winter (This Will Be Our Year) and spring (Changes) and I have far too many memories associated with this album. I think what made me add this to the list is the endless mead of grass I keep imagining whenever I listen to it and also because when I first listened to Friends of Mine, it was refreshing for me. Here's a song so positive and totally not bitter because his friends found love but instead he used their love to remind himself that that kind of love exists. That to me is so pure. I also felt like The Zombies needs to be here because I saw them live three years ago with Johnny and it was his first ever concert and he started crying when they sang Edge of the Rainbow and he whispered, "the lyrics, I'm so happy" and that is what spring reminds me of. Just bewitching points in time that makes you think life isn't so bad, however hokey that must've sounded.
10. Kites are Fun by The Free Design - Literally, kites are fun, you guys. And that's just what this album is about and just what you need, the simple pleasures. A straightforward way of saying hey you, take a break, maybe even a nap; I'll braid your hair; let's paint each others' toenails, etc. This is preschool information but sometimes life isn't about the work, it's about the simple pleasures.
11. Judee Sill by Judee Sill - It's a very annoying human thing to be possessive of something so personal to you and want to protect it with your life. For me, it's this album and I'm always anti-hipster in terms of sharing because I love to share and ramble on and on about the things I like, but Judee Sill IS MINE. Take everything else but spare me my crayon angel. This album reminds me of that early point in my relationship with Johnny when I was intensely in love but slowly self-destructing. Not only am I over the ledge depressed all the time, I have intense anxiety too and at that time, I had nothing outside of our relationship and my best friend was away so everything that I was feeling then was still new and I didn't know how to respond to them on my own. So every night I just kept crying cos it was like I love too much and it wasn't reciprocated. One night, I was listening to my iPod and cried myself to sleep but woke up in the middle of the night and Judee Sill's Lady-O was playing and I just sat there on my bed feeling unburdened. Now I'm not sure who put me in this balance or how I got here in this peace of mind and understanding that if I love more and people love me less, it doesn't make me less special but I want to believe it's because of that night.
12. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles - This doesn't particularly sound spring but it feels like it is. There are a lot of upbeat Beatles' albums intended for the springtime, (Magical Mystery Tour hello!) but the songs in Sgt. Pepper are v important yet constantly overlooked. It fits the theme of how I see spring as a time of gradual healing. For example, She's Leaving Home, which is presumably about a yé-yé girl wanting to leave home to seek for pleasure in the sixties, could mean something different in context to a girl today who feels irrelevant or abused at home and this song is her ticket to break free from the chains and escape to look for her meaning/own kind of fun: She goes downstairs to the kitchen / Clutching her handkerchief / Quietly turning the backdoor key / Stepping outside, she is free. Within You, Without You is a deeper understanding of our place in this world and that we are small so our problems must be small too, in a way that we probably shouldn't worry about it too much. And Getting Better, for me, is just totes essential because most of my life is depression pushing me off the cliff but I keep trying to climb back up because I really really really wanna get better. We need songs like these that give us a little push but also doesn't want us to rush things cos we don't have to feel like we need to be somewhere.
13. Just Another Diamond Day by Vashti Bunyan - No spring collection is complete without Vashti, that's for sure. Just Another Diamond Day is a gem, almost like a bite off an apricot. It's scary genius how Vashti can write metaphors about mundane things so simply and leave you a sobbing mess before it ends. This is one of my favourite albums because I would take the bus to school at 2 P.M. and I was afraid of school so I would just sit there listening to this album on my iPod, next to a stranger trying so hard to hide my tears. I was so frustrated cos I didn't know how to stop going to school without failing my parents. Somehow, my only solace was this brilliant woman. Vashti will always be my 2.P.M.
14. Now by Kim Jong Mi - Finally we have here a 100% quintessential springtime jam and bread. I mean look at that album art! It screams spring. Now is a magical psychedelic ride about all the basic elements of spring: wind, dreams, breeze, river, mountains, the unknown and a lonely heart and Jung Mi weaved them all together into this beautiful tapestry you can wrap yourself with when the sun is setting and it's starting to get chilly.
15. How Sad, How Lovely by Connie Converse - Connie sounds like a small-town aunt Barb recording songs she'd written in her basement at night. I was really intrigued by her raw and tender singing the first time I heard her. She wrote about her loneliness and frustrations so eloquently the same way Van Gogh depicts his depression through his paintings and her songs were always sweet and blissful but with an underlying sense of sadness conveyed so well in Honeybee and How Sad, How Lovely. But just like you, me and the bourgeoisie, she left home wanting a fresh start. However, her depression got the best of her and she disappeared without a trace and this album perfectly chronicles the inner workings of her confused mind.
16. Sensational by Equals - Butterfly Red White and Blue, Soul Groovin', Give Love a Try: these songs ease my seasonal slump and make me wanna boogie.
17. Wildflowers by Judy Collins - My mom's strength and coldness is astonishing it's scary. It's hard to hurt her feelings because we don't know how she truly feels. It's extremely touching when she recognizes my capabilities even if I can't see it for myself and she's set the bar so high it's unbelievable whenever she acknowledges our small achievements. I had grown up so scared of my mom that I try so hard to please her or at least try not to bother her because she is such an accomplished woman. Yes she's silly but you'll never see her making a fool of herself. And then she sang Both Sides Now in the karaoke one day and I was just watching her in awe. I knew it was a Joni Mitchell song but I hadn't heard of Judy's version then and I heard it first from my mom and she made it sound like her own. So I illegally downloaded the entire Wildflowers album (which led me to discover a chilling cover of Leonard Cohen's Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye) and since then whenever I listen to it, I always think of my mom and wonder how she's doing.
18. Bryter Layter by Nick Drake - Nick Drake's personification is poetry and his music is a tap into a higher purpose. Often times, I'd find myself crying over the first few unmistakeable Nick Drake strumming and I'd cry after I discover a part of his lyrics that had always gone over my head but suddenly impacted me. There's a lot of cathartic crying going on when it comes to Nick Drake and that's because his songs are brimming with emotional content and when he sings them, it's all parts of your heart being pulled in different directions. Now Bryter Layter specifically because the composition of Introduction alone makes you want to take a long hot shower and start fresh and just the entirety of the album is beautiful, uplifting and sad at the same time you're torn between hyperactively wanting to do everything at once and being overwhelmed by so much emotion that you eventually succumb deeper into depression and accept that you'll be sulking forever.
And that's it! 18 albums that enriched my life. I hope you listened to each and everyone and that they made you feel ok with not being ok. Now scroll back up and reread the entire thing but this time, whilst playing a round of drink every time she wrote the word spring
